I was thinking about doing a -J for MTF tropes, namely within exploration/operation logs. Either an MTF with a ridiculous amount of gear and weapons that explores a cliché-filled SCP-███ and dies (obviously). OR a normal MTF mission that comes close but defies every trope (i.e. "oh our comms are down, let's just go back to HQ, that was weird. End."). Here is a short list of some clichés I could come up with:

MTF explorations ending in total casualties

Always having communication issues with HQ

Unnecessary splitting up

Being generally incompetent

Being woefully underequipped (not as common)

Defying the main mission goals for personal glory

If you have any other tropes or can give feedback on whether this is a good/original idea or not let me know!

Honestly, I'd be on board for this. Horror movie tropes always annoy me in actual movies but crack me up as jokes/slapstick skits. This would have to make it really clear that the events taking place are really, really stupid from the reader's point of view, however. For instance, remember that Geico commercial about stupid horror movie decisions? That's the kind of thing this should be reminiscent of in my opinion.

This list might help you think of some good tropes that never go away. Also, some things off the top of my head:

Finding a super fucked up and obviously possessed/haunted thing and going into it despite being told you shouldn't and knowing you shouldn't

Calling the person with the safe ideas a wimp/coward

Someone coming into the room as a killer is there and grabbing their attention by being stupid so the protagonist can escape

Someone close to the protagonist being the killer

There are easy ways to work these all into MTF situations, and it really could be done by simply writing groups of characters as MTF agents. Just look at horror movies like Friday the 13th that have groups of people who die and put MTF agents in their place.

Thanks for the reply! This is basically exactly what I was thinking, making it as obviously satirical as possible without going overboard, like calling them MTF-Beta-69-J or something.

On another note, how do you think this would be best posted? As a Tale, SCP-J or something else? I'm thinking of doing both ideas, e.g. the ones you and Petrograd helped elaborate on if that makes things clearer, although not necessarily in the same piece.

I think splitting this into 2 pieces might be a bit much, considering how close the two ideas are to each other. Either way, I think this would work well as a -J, if you came up with some simple anomaly to explore. Probably a KETERHECK1.

This sounds way better to me, and I'd be into that. Just listing off the generic bad things that happen to MTFs would just remind me of bad writing.

There's sort of levels of this, though. When you say "let's just go back to HQ, that was weird", that sounds like them just avoiding the Idiot Ball. Going one step further, you could make them Genre Savvy. I don't think either of those are going to be interesting enough enough to sustain a running joke.

I think you'd have to have some kind of specific subversion for each trope as they come up. The page on Subverted Tropes has a ton of examples. (I mean, each one could be based on them not being dumb/knowing how this goes down/getting lucky or whatever, as long as each trope gets subverted in a specific/funny way.)

Lemme see if I can think of other MTF tropes…

Someone falling into a hole.

Not noticing that somebody is missing.

Someone who previously went missing screaming or saying crazy shit on the channel.

Safety tethers or markers for the path back out getting all jumbled up.

Thanks for the reply, so if I'm getting this right a better example might be:

The MTF is advancing through a spookytm SCP, and suddenly the leader goes "wait, where's Joe??? We've lost him! HQ be advised we have lost contact with Joe- oh wait he was standing behind Jake, nevermind, false alarm".

OR

Note: the path splits into 3 sections at this point, with no end in sight for any path. MTF-Beta-69-J Leader decides to stick the team together and go down the left path, as this is a "Dangerous fin' place we're not splitting up"

Or would it have to be more subtle like someone going missing then being found by retracing their steps and he just got lost and stayed put so they walk into him. I like the idea a lot and would ideally like to do something on both, maybe tying them in together in some way, but is that the quality of execution you would be expecting?